Mittman Report, September 2009


Board and SLC discussion, facilitated by Robert Mittman – September 11, 2009

Mind shifts -- ISTE needs to:
  • understand that ISTE is driven by demand for services, not driven by the U.S. and have a clear direction like that
  • begin to remove U.S.-centric words and initiatives
  • recognize the U.S. is part of the world, not us and the rest of them
  • make a very specific change in language from the word international to the word global
ISTE must engage in specific activities to realize becoming more international.
  • have a single global conference as well as ISTE conferences in many countries, or hosting global conferences or regional conferences. These can be global celebrations of educational technologies.
  • have no language barriers either in the events that you have or in the published resources and the other tools.
  • localize ISTE’s stuff, not just with respect to language, but move toward universal design and open access; has to do with the content as well as multi-modal communication; communication that fits for every region of the world.
  • move toward ubiquitous use of digital tools and content for teaching and learning; media-rich and global content and resource repositories.
  • move toward global inter-connections; communities without walls; classrooms without walls.
  • be open to contributions from all and aware of best practices from everywhere, and you’ll have members discussing differences in regional best practices to learn from each other to support and facilitate global conversations.
  • be sensitive to economic diversity within and outside the U.S., and so you’re dues structures could be based on the economics of the region or the economics of the location.
How do you organize to do all this?
  • more multi-national board with shared leadership or global representation on the Board
  • more representative staff with multi-regional staff leadership and diversity among your staff leadership
  • have ISTE offices in many countries, branch offices outside the U.S. or international ISTE’s
  • move toward a starfish organization, that’s loosely coupled, so that you have affiliates and members on many continents, and there’s a worldwide distribution of affiliates, perhaps with regional governance councils, perhaps with a peacecorp-like global presence, but in effect you have a multi-point presence around the world

Consequences are you have a worldwide distribution of members; maybe 30% outside the U.S., maybe 50% outside the U.S., but irrespective of the absolute number, there’s significant growth in global membership.
The Result:
· ISTE becomes really involved at a global level
· ISTE becomes invited to provide input into global education, documents, and policies
· ISTE collaborates for policy change
· ISTE has many deeper partnerships with non-U.S. educational organization, multi-national partnerships, partners connected globally and increasingly interdependent
NEW ISTE Characteristics:
  • Shared vision
  • Borderless
  • Lack of silos
  • An organization that is flat in recognition of how flat the world is
  • Walk the talk of using the technology
  • Unafraid of innovation
  • A change-agent
  • Organization with international reach and impact
If you do all this you will become “the” trusted advisor, highly sought-after, the go-to organization, that’s widely respected and really considered among the top five education organizations worldwide. You’ll be recognized by governments, ministries of education, and heck, even by Google as the #1 organization on educational technology topics.